A Funder’s Guide to Supporting English Language Learners Ten percent of elementary school students are English Language Learners (ELLs). They are the most rapidly growing groups in U.S. elementary schools. Read more...

Children in Immigrant Families First Focus recently hosted a Congressional Briefing, “Children in Immigrant Families: Ensuring Opportunity for Every Child in America,” sponsored by Representative Judy Chu (D-CA). Panelists discussed the issues facing children in immigrant families including access to public benefits for citizen children, early childhood education, immigration enforcement, and birthright citizenship. Read more...

Children in Immigrant Families: Ensuring Opportunity for Every Child in America

Children in immigrant families account for nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of all children as of 2010, and the vast majority (88 percent) are U.S. citizens. In fact, children of immigrants account for nearly the entire growth in the U.S. child population between 1990 and 2008.1 This policy brief draws on key indicators from the Foundation for Child Development Child Well-Being Index (CWI), as well as additional data, to highlight both similarities and differences in the circumstances of children in immigrant and native-born families.

The New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative today proposed 12 policy ideas for the 112th Congress to improve access, quality, and alignment for children starting in PreKindergarten and through Third Grade. Read more...

Child Poverty: Lessons from the UK First Focus recently hosted a Congressional Briefing, “Tackling Child Poverty and Improving Child Well-Being: Lessons from Britain,” sponsored by Representative Jim McDermott (D – Washington). At the briefing, the panelists discussed how the UK carried out its ambitious campaign to end child poverty by 2020, and what lessons the US can learn. Read more...

There have been some hopeful signs in the new Congress that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would be reathorized despite earlier doubts. Lisa Guernsey at the Early Education Initiative for the New America Foundation argues for the importance of early learning in the reauthorized bill. You can read her blog post here. Last year, FCD helped draft a letter to Congress recommending that the reathorization focus on the grades PreKindergar Read more...

By Jack Brennan and J.B. Pritzker. Every day, separated by nearly half a continent, we wake up, get out of bed and embark on the same professional mission: To build a business and create jobs. Constantly confronted by the harsh realities of the corporate balance sheet and often skeptical of government spending, we’ve come to believe in one key to sustained economic success. Read more...

Middle-Class Children Falling Further Behind The American middle-class is disappearing. Today, the gap between middle- and high-income Americans is as wide as the gap between low- and high-income Americans in 1985. Read more...

New 25-year study by Donald J. Hernandez shows bleak future for middle-class children in America. Declining prospects for middle-class children will be worsened by budget cuts. Read the report here.Read more...